Crowley 100
by Lucillia
Summary: A hundred short stories featuring our favorite demon and his friends - and his enemies, apartment, plants, people around him, etc. -.
1. 1 through 20

I borrowed the themes from the Live Journal Fanfic 100 thing and decided to do them all. The following stories will mostly be a little bit longer than drabble length, most of them being about double-drabble length. Hopefully you will find them all entertaining.

Now, without further ado, onto the part you've been waiting for.

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**001 Beginnings.  
**

While the meeting in the Garden of Eden had been the beginning of a long acquaintance, it had not been the beginning of a beautiful friendship. The beginning of the Arrangement hadn't been a start of said friendship either. In those early days shortly after they'd come to their agreement, they had been warily circling each-other waiting for the other to be the first to break their tenuous peace. The true beginning of what could be called friendship between the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale had its roots in the fourteenth century, and was in Crowley's opinion the only good thing to come out of that century.

It had started, as almost everything with Aziraphale did, with a book...

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**002 Middles.**

Lick. Lick. Lick. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

"Crowley dear, what are you eating?"

Lick. Crunch.

" 'Sss called an Oreo. Want one?"

Crunch.

" 'Sss not how you eat it. You're supposed to twist it open, lick out the stuff in the middle, then eat the outside."

Lick.

"Eurgh, what is this?"

"I think it's sweetened lard."

"Sweetened...lard...?"

"They were invented by the Americans. I picked them up on my trip there along with a bunch of other 'Junk food'."

"That explains it."

Lick. Lick. Lick. Crunch. Crunch. Lick. Lick.

"I've also got a bag of barbecue flavored crisps if you want to try some of those."

Rustle. Rustle. Pop.

Crunch.

"Hmmm..."

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

"Seemsss they were right when they said 'You can't eat just one'."

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**003 Ends. **

It began as all things did with the Beginning. First there was the Word, then the Creator spoke them all into existence from the First, the Morning Star, to the Son who was to rule at the Father's side. Amongst the ranks of the Heavenly Host was a curious and easily bored little angel who got into everything, and a rather bookish angel who was constantly watching the scribes record everything that was currently in existence.

Though they had met a few times, neither angel hung out in the same circles, and therefore one of them wasn't there when the other had fallen in with the wrong crowd and ended up being kicked out of Heaven.

There are several millennia of middle which are initially marked with conflict, then with a tenuous peace, and then with a wonderful friendship that neither would be willing to give up for the world. Both hold the small hope in their hearts that the middle will last forever, but know that it won't.

Crowley doesn't want to see how it ends. He knows that the ending won't be anywhere near as beautiful as the beginning.

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**004 Insides. **

Crowley smiled as he adjusted his grip on the bat. This was an excellent form of stress relief, and he was quite surprised that he hadn't tried it before. With one last smack, the angel he'd hung from the tree had been beaten to death. All that was left was to gather its insides off of the ground in order to consume them at his leisure at a later point.

As soon as the angel's innards were neatly gathered into a container, he grabbed another angel and hung it from the massive oak. He then picked up the blindfold and the bat.

"Your turn angel." Crowley said as he handed the two items to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale, looking slightly nervous, took them.

"Something wrong angel?" Crowley asked.

"Dear, does the pinata_ have _to look like Gabriel?" Aziraphale asked.

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**005 Outsides.**

Crowley winced when he saw the DC hanging outside his door.

It would seem that someone had apparently gotten around to reporting the angel missing. He'd done the best he could to cover for him until his return as he had done a number of times since the start of the arrangement, but there'd apparently been a bureaucratic foul-up somewhere, and things were taking longer than usual. Before now, Aziraphale had always turned up within a week of his discorporation. This time however, it had been over two months, and his "He's on vacation." excuse had worn rather thin.

He only had himself to blame for this however. The next time he wanted to test the angel with a logic puzzle that he'd gotten from a Harry Potter book, they both should be sober.

Having the angel try to find their next bottle of wine out of a line-up that was ostensibly of wine, poison, and fire-immunity potion using poorly written clues on a slip of paper had seemed funny at the time, as had the expression on the angel's face as he studied the bottles' unmarked and opaque exteriors. Watching the angel accidentally poison himself because he'd thought it would be funny to put poison in all of the bottles had been absolutely hilarious at the time as well. It wasn't so amusing now.

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**006. Hours. **

They'd been sitting there for hours. He honestly didn't know why he'd even agreed to come. This was more the angel's thing. Well, based on the look on Aziraphale's face, it wasn't much of his thing either.

It was nine months after the apocalypse that wasn't. Anathema Pulsifer-Device had invited the two of them to share in the joyous experience of the birth of the first Pulsifer-Device child. As a result, the two of them were sitting around Jasmine Cottage while Anathema lay on a bed screaming and a midwife waited to tell the woman it was time to push. The husband, Newton, was sitting next to Aziraphale, panicking, and breathing into a paper bag for some reason.

In all of the advice that Anathema's ancestors had left her over the centuries, there had been one bit of advice that had been forgotten, and that had been "Use a condom".

They could be excused under the circumstances though. It was supposed to have been the End of the World after all.

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**007 Days. **

When you're for all intents and purposes immortal, and when you've lived for over six-thousand years, unless something particularly memorable happens, days tended to blur one into the next. They're pretty much like what minutes and seconds are to a human being. You're peripherally aware of the rising and the setting of the sun, but it is unimportant.

When one is immortal, you tend to mark time in decades or even centuries. That is one of the reasons that Aziraphale was so behind the times. For him, the nineteen-fifties may as well have been a few days ago rather than the lifetime ago it was for most people. Even Crowley himself, who did his best to be on top of things and at the cutting-edge had found himself falling behind these days.

Crowley, though he prided himself in always being a man of the times, didn't like the fast paced way these times moved no matter how much he pretended he did. With all of the scurrying about he did trying to stay on top of things, he felt tired, and he just wanted to go to sleep for a good long while. He knew he couldn't though. The last time he'd decided to sleep through a century because he didn't like the way things were moving, the entire world had left him behind.

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**008 Weeks. **

Crowley sighed as he made his way up from the gates of Hell to London. Even skating across the road of frozen door-to-door salesmen on the way back had failed to improve his mood over being forced to visit Hell.

There were times that he regretted giving the guys downstairs ideas. Rather than picking up on the ones he wanted them to, they always managed to latch on to the ones that were most inconvenient for him. The most recent of these that they had picked up on was the idea of the mandatory Staff Meeting. Fortunately for him, despite the fact that such meetings had been arranged to be quarterly, demons tended to mark time in centuries, and he wouldn't be forced to go through another one of them for another twenty-five years.

Eventually, after blowing through a traffic-jam like it wasn't even there, he got back to his apartment where his plants all showed signs of having been tended to by Aziraphale. He would have to properly terrorize them to get them back into shape, but he could do that later.

Sighing, he poured himself a drink, turned on his computer, logged onto his e-mail, and promptly started Blessing loudly when he saw the date.

He'd been in that Go- Sa- _Someone_ Damned meeting for three fucking weeks!

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**009 Months. **

And, with the final press of a button, he finished the game with a perfect score.

Giving the t.v. screen a slightly manic smile as the main menu came up, he went over to the device he'd recently purchased, pulled out the disc and popped in another one. A few minutes later, he found himself immersed in yet another fantasy world created by the humans. The gameplay on this one wasn't the best, and frankly, the story was crap, but these things were so addicting. Once he finished that game, he popped in another one, and was lost in yet another fantasy world.

In the middle of a particularly difficult battle, his eyes were suddenly assaulted by sunlight. Whirling around to face the source of the light, he found Aziraphale standing by the just opened curtains.

"What did you go and do that for? !" he asked angrily as his character died messily.

"I'm sorry dear, but you've been sitting there for months." the angel said.

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**010 Years.**

There was a time when the thought of not seeing Aziraphale for years had filled Crowley with joy. That time wasn't now. In fact, on the day that Aziraphale left, he had gotten drunk and broken several somethings, including his fist.

Heaven must have decided that the angel was becoming too attached to England or something, because they ordered him to go help out the starving kids in Africa. Starving kids he might add, that Heaven hadn't seemed to care about before now.

The angel had entrusted him with his book shop, which was a rather stupid thing to do in his opinion. He had half a mind to sell off all of the books that the angel had acquired since he'd offloaded those kid's books onto a bunch of collectors while the angel was gone.

Getting drunk in the back room and playing darts with the religious motivational poster that was tacked to the back door wasn't nearly as fun without the angel there making a half-assed attempt at trying to stop him and completely failing because he was just as smashed himself.

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**011 Red.**

The first time Crowley had discorporated Aziraphale, he had been surprised to discover that Aziraphale's body actually had blood running through its veins. He should have known that it would be there considering the fact that, aside from the odd hair color and the eyes, his own infernally manufactured body could pass for that of an adult human male. Which there were less than two of at the time.

Seeing the blood had been shocking in a way he couldn't describe however. It was shocking in a way nobody could yet describe, as Cain and Abel were still children who got into the occasional spat and hadn't yet had their little bout of fratricide.

The crimson pool that surrounded Aziraphale's vessel gave off a strange metallic stench that he didn't like, and the red substance that stained his hands was unpleasantly sticky.

Trying to pretend that what had just happened hadn't affected him beyond the initial shock, he went to a nearby stream to wash his hands.

After several minutes of scrubbing, despite the fact that his hands were clean, it still felt like the blood was there.

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**012 Orange. **

The sounds of parents yelling at screaming kids was practically music to his ears, considering the hours of effort it had taken for them to reach this point. What was supposed to be the Happiest Place on Earth didn't sound too happy, and it had all been because of him. Well, the hellishly hot weather that was common for Southern California in the summertime hadn't, but the rest had been all him.

A couple of ride malfunctions, and the breakdown of every soft-serve ice cream machine in the park as well as the redirection of a couple food shipments, and the sounds of joy turned to bellows of anger and cries of dismay as people's tempers - which had already been frayed by the heat, the massive crowds, and incredibly long lines - finally snapped.

As the sun sank low in the sky and turned from yellow to orange, Crowley had a feeling that there was something missing, but wasn't quite sure what it was. Finally, as the last sliver of the sun vanished beneath the horizon and the sky darkened, his mind supplied the chiding "Really, dear?" a certain angel would have given him were he here.

Now, everything was perfect.

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**013 Yellow. **

Crowley's eyes had always been yellow, even back before he'd hung out with the wrong crowd and sauntered vaguely downwards towards Hell and everything that came with it. Back then however, they'd been more of a daisy yellow, rather than the venomous color they were now. They had started out pale gold at the edges before shading darker into a buttercup yellow in the center. He'd received many compliments on them before everything had gone to Hell in a handbasket.

His yellow eyes had been the one thing that had made him unique. Every angel had something to differentiate themselves from the others, something that made them an individual, and the eyes had been his gift from their Father. His and his alone.

After the fall, when red was becoming all the rage in eye color amongst the newly created demons, he who had been a follower back then had been tempted to make the change to red, but something had stopped him. He'd ended up going with a rather wicked set of slit pupils instead.

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**014. Green. **

Aside from white, black, silver, and the occasional touch of crimson, the only color in his apartment was green. That green came from the dozens of lush and near terminally frightened plants that graced nearly every surface of his apartment which looked as if it came straight out of a design catalog, or one of the better home decorating magazines as a prime example of what an apartment in the city should look like.

The plants were one of the few things about the apartment that never changed. That wasn't to say that they were the same plants from when he'd moved in decades earlier, because they weren't; as his plants, despite being the healthiest looking plants around, had a high turnover rate. It was just that, despite the number of times he'd changed the apartment's decor, replacing the apartment's pristine white fridge and countertops with a stainless steel one and black granite countertops for example, he always kept plants in the apartment. He'd always kept plants, period.

If anyone asked why he even bothered keeping the things, he'd just shrug and let them infer that he didn't actually know why he did so. The truth was that it was because there were no plants in Hell, and it was a comforting reminder that he wasn't there. Any day he had to tend to and terrorize the leafy things he'd first seen in the Garden was another day further away from that horrible day when he had Fallen and woken up in chains in the Lake of Fire.

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**015 Blue. **

Crowley liked Aziraphale's eyes. He'd told the Angel as much one day, and got a blankly puzzled look in return. That had to do with the nature of the bodies that the Heavenly Host handed out to Angels working on Earth. Ostensibly, despite the fact that they didn't all have the same shape, they all had the same curly blond hair and blue eyes.

Back when this decision had first been made, it had been because it gave the angels an otherworldly appearance that marked them as something else entirely, as the vast majority of the human race at that point had possessed darkish tan skin and dark brown hair and eyes. Things certainly got interesting when a certain genetic mutation cropped up amongst the humans a few generations after the Flood. Accusations went flying for centuries, and Aziraphale got called back to Heaven to be interrogated five times.

Aside from being fun to needle Aziraphale about on occasion, that was neither here nor there.

The reason he liked Aziraphale's eyes was because unlike the clear, icy, near emotionless ones of other angels he'd seen, Aziraphale's eyes were warm and expressive. That, and they were slightly imperfect. Whoever was giving Aziraphale his bodies, kept putting a darker blue spot next to the pupil in his left eye.

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**016 Purple. **

It all started when Aziraphale had gotten rather inconveniently and publicly discorporated by a drunk driver. By the time that Aziraphale returned in a new body, Crowley had been only half-way through with dealing with the mess that had been left behind by the angel's "death". In a world that was now obsessed with documentation, and better able to keep track of it than Hell was - or even Heaven for that matter - a few questions had cropped up, such as exactly where "Mr. Fell" had come from. Despite properly turning in all necessary tax forms every year etc., the angel had forgotten to keep up with the paperwork regarding his identity, and the government had been under the impression that the Mr. Fell who owned the angel's book shop was somewhere around a hundred and ten years old.

If that weren't the least of his problems, the body the angel returned in was that of a teenager. Not a "might pass for eighteen in the right light" teenager, but a tall, gawky, spotty, "Why aren't you in school young man?" teenager. Which meant that in addition to getting the annoying angel another new identity - as Heaven had failed to provide him with any of the necessary paperwork, trusting that either he or the humans would be able to take care of it - he would have to fill out forms pertaining to the angel's guardianship and/or lack thereof.

Another problem cropped up when the angel had tried to wear the old clothes that Crowley had rather considerately packed away for when he returned, instead of burning them as he had been tempted to do. Aziraphale's new body was four inches taller than the old one, and a great deal skinnier. Being an angel, Aziraphale had refused to miracle his clothes to fit on general principles, and a needle and thread couldn't fix this problem. Crowley had ended up sighing at the mournful expression on the angel's face, and handing him a large wad of cash under the condition that none of the angel's new clothes contained tartan in any way shape or form.

"I guess since I look so young now, I should wear something that looks more youthful." the angel mused to himself when he accepted the money. "Maybe I'll even get myself a pair of those denim trousers young people wear these days."

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Have fun." Crowley said as he ushered the angel - who was still dressed in the god-awful white robe that heaven had dumped him back on Earth in since he refused to borrow any of Crowley's clothing and couldn't wear his own - out the door.

The angel returned three hours later and, despite the fact that the angel was wearing a new pair of rather tight fitting jeans when he returned, Crowley was forced to choke back a scream that was equal parts horror and frustration when he walked in the door. After just barely keeping himself from screaming, he was left with the desire to run up to the nearest wall and slam his head into it repeatedly. Go- Sa- _Someone_, if he'd known it would be this bad, he would have gone out and bought up every square yard of tartan in Scotland and given it all to the angel. He didn't know where or how he found them, but Aziraphale's jeans were purple. No, they weren't just purple, purple wouldn't even begin to cover it, they were **PURPLE!**.

And the angel wondered why people thought he was gay...

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**017 Brown. **

Crowley let out a frustrated hiss. There were teenagers in his apartment.

There were teenagers in his apartment.

There were teenagers hanging out in his apartment, messing with his plants, eating his food which he kept in the fridge because you were supposed to keep food in a fridge, not because he wanted to eat it. Two of them were on the couch playing catch while ostensibly watching his big-screen t.v., and his state-of-the-art sound system was blasting rock music at a near deafening volume.

In the middle of the chaos, Aziraphale - who was still in his school uniform - was sitting in his armchair and voraciously wolfing down a tub of ice-cream. That was practically all the angel did these days, read, and eat. That, and go to the Catholic secondary school that Crowley had enrolled him in as a joke.

The angel's head shot up the instant he realized he was there, and he turned to look at him guiltily. There was a brown stain around the angel's mouth indicating that the ice-cream the angel was eating was either chocolate or that coffee flavored stuff he'd recently acquired a liking for. The angel had become a bit messier in his habits ever since he'd been given the teenage body. He cut the poor angel some slack though, since he suspected that this had something to do with morphic resonance, that this phase would pass, and that the angel would be back to normal as soon as he was an adult again. This wasn't the first time the angel had turned up as a teenager. That incident back during the Fourteenth century came to mind...

If the angel didn't show any signs of aging soon however, he would be discorporating him himself.

"What is all of this?" he asked, making an angry gesture that took in the mess that had been the apartment he'd been forced to share with the angel since the authorities had taken a dim view of the angel living in the bookshop, and asked a number of awkward questions, before making a bunch of demands.

"They invited themselves." the angel said helplessly.

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**018 Black. **

"It's a good thing I like black." Crowley muttered as he made a bunch of black suits that were cut according to this year's fashions appear in his closet.

When demons were in human form, they had to go around wearing black.

He couldn't imagine what life would have been like if he hadn't actually liked black. If he'd liked that rather fetching shade of emerald green that Aziraphale had been so fond of a few centuries back for instance, or that bright shade of orange that had only come into existence during the twentieth century, or that particular shade of indigo which had vanished with the advent of synthetic dyes.

Yes, Crowley thought, it was a very good thing he liked black.

"Screw it." Crowley said a few minutes later before he grabbed his keys and walked out the door dressed in a bright green jacket, orange t-shirt with something witty and vaguely obscene printed on it, jeans that were of a shade of blue that hadn't been seen in a long time, and canvas sneakers that were of a shade of purple which had last been seen on the cloak of a Roman emperor.

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**019 White. **

Crowley hadn't attended the actual wedding ceremony. That was understandable considering...But, he had been invited to the reception afterwards.

There was an open bar, and he had decided to take full advantage of it. He'd been on his tenth drink when he angel who had been talking to all of the other guests, finally joined him. When the angel had reached his side with a drink in hand, he had decided to ask the question that had bothered him all evening.

"I haven't been around all that many weddings in recent years, but..." Crowley started.

"What dear?" Aziraphale asked.

"Weren't Adam and Pepper living together?" he asked.

"Yes, for three years now. It's something young people do these days." the angel replied, sounding slightly distressed.

"So, what's she doing wearing white?" he asked.

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**020 Colorless. **

Crowley twisted the shotglass in his hands. Rather than being one of those souvenir shot glasses one picks up in shops dedicated to tourists when one is on vacation, it is clear, and the liquid inside is colorless. After playing with it a bit, he downed the shot in single smooth move that belied his state of intoxication.

" 'S your um... turn, thas it, turn." Crowley's equally intoxicated opponent said from across the table.

An evil smirk crossed his face as he studied the draughts board in front of him before picking up a small glass filled with vodka and making a move that cinched the game. His opponent picked up and snapped back two shots of whiskey in rapid succession before conceding and draining the other glasses left on the board.

That had been his and Aziraphale's seventh game of shotglass checkers that evening, and his fourth win.

"Would you like another game?" Crowley, whose sunglasses were askew, whose necktie thrown across the back of Aziraphale's couch, and whose shirtsleeves were unbuttoned and rolled up to his elbows asked.

"Sure." Aziraphale said before he began to unsteadily set up his side of the board.

There were times when just sitting around getting drunk together got boring. Fortunately, humans were such creative creatures, and they often found ways to make things interesting. This game which he'd picked up when he'd been hanging around near a university campus had been one of them.


	2. 21 through 40

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**021 Friends. **

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People use any excuse to party. Though Halloween is much bigger in America, there was still the occasional Halloween party across the pond where Crowley currently lived. During lunch, he was invited to one that was sure to be a very good one, and he had the perfect costume in mind.

When he headed to the angel's shop that day, it hadn't been to invite the angel out to the party. The angel didn't approve of Halloween, and had flat out stated that no matter how people tried to dress it up, it was still a pagan holiday. He'd then pointed out that the timing of Christmas was suspiciously pagan, as well as a number of the modern Christmas traditions, and the angel didn't speak to him for a week. Today, he was actually hoping not to run into the angel, as a component that he needed for his costume happened to be one of Aziraphale's favorite tartan vests, and a quick glance at the angel through the window had confirmed that the angel wasn't wearing it.

He made his way to the back of the shop where the angel kept his clothes in an old trunk while the angel was busy trying to get rid of a customer. After rifling through the trunk a bit, he came away with his prize which he then hid in his shirt before sneaking back out of the shop and heading back to his apartment to grab the rest of his costume.

He was sure that Aziraphale wouldn't mind too much. What's a little theft between friends?

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**022 Enemies.**

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He was glad that Aziraphale wasn't here. If he was, their Arrangement which had worked for nearly a thousand years would go down the toilet in an instant, and it would be the angel who broke the peace. Aside from the occasional practical joke that backfired, he had not actively tried to harm the angel in centuries. The same could not be said for any other angels he had encountered though. The only excuse he could offer was "They started it", and even though it was true, it wouldn't fly with the Angel. The angel which had been rather messily discorporated today had indeed started it, but he had finished it.

He was glad that Aziraphale wasn't here. Aside from the fact that the angel would be morally obligated to help his own side, he knew that it would distress the angel to no end to see him discorporate one of his brethren. He didn't like upsetting the angel, and not just because he was dangerous when he was truly angry.

He miracled the blood and other mess off of himself and his clothing, and left what was left of the body lying on the ground without a backward glance. He and Aziraphale may be friends, but he and every other angel in existence were enemies.

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**023 Lovers. **

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He's had thousands of lovers over the millennia. They've come in all shapes and sizes except for clueless Angel who - despite looking and acting gay as hell - wouldn't know what sex was if it came up and bit him on the arse.

He was sure that Aziraphale intellectually knew what sexual intercourse was, and exactly where new humans came from, but when considering it in relation to himself...

He'd seen thousands of people of both genders try to proposition the angel and get blank stares in return. The more forward humans who had tried to kiss or grope the angel always ended up stopping after a couple of seconds, blinking in confusion a couple of times, and wandering off to go do something elsewhere, usually a good deed of some sort that they wouldn't normally be caught dead doing.

He'd been tempted to try something with the angel, but had refrained, as he didn't want to take the risk of finding himself donating actual money to an orphanage or volunteering to build houses for the homeless. No matter how many times he told himself he was, he wasn't entirely certain that he was immune to the angel's influence.

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**024 Family. **

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Technically every angel in Heaven and every demon in Hell was his family. They all had been siblings before Lucifer had rebelled and dragged a third of the Heavenly Host down with him. They were all still brothers and sisters, but they were also two opposing armies.

In Hell, gathering into family groups generally wasn't done, and each demon was encouraged to distrust his brethren. Each demon distrusted all the others, and for good reason. While demons could strike up friendships, there was always a chance that one's so-called friend was merely waiting for them to let their guard down and turn around so they could stab them in the back.

As far as Heaven was concerned, all of the demons were lost, dead to them, and only good for being destroyed outright. The only time that an angel would acknowledge the fact that a demon was his brother was in order to lament said loss, and speak of how he should have known said brother was evil from the start.

Out of the the entire Heavenly Host and all of the Legions of Hell, there was only one being that Crowly truly considered to be family, and that was Aziraphale.

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**025 Strangers. **

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Crowley liked strangers. Finding out what made them tick was fascinating, and a good way to wile - pun fully intended - away thousands or even millions of empty hours. When it came to humans, every time he was about to say that he'd seen it all before, someone would surprise him.

It usually took him less than a day to figure out what box to put a new acquaintance in, and by that point they were no-longer strangers, as he'd usually already tempted them into sinning in some manner, and had probably even gotten them to commit a small crime or two.

Meeting new people was always fun though, and these days there were so many of them...

Today, he'd decided to make the acquaintance of the impatient foot tapper in the check-out queue at the Asda across town from his apartment who had loaf of bread, tin of sardines, and box of condoms in his basket that he was standing behind. Normally, he wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this one, but well, let's just say that if anyone used the condoms that were on the shelves today, there were good odds that there would be a bunch more strangers for him to meet in a few years time.

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**026 Teammates.**

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There's no I in Team. That's probably why Crowley didn't care too much for team sports, that, and because being picked for a team during a game up in Heaven had been what had gotten him in with the wrong crowd in the first place.

Back then, Hastur hadn't been a total dick, and it had been an honor for him to approach him to ask him if he'd like to play a game, since they were one short.

After he'd made a play that had helped the team win the game, he had been accepted as one of the team. He'd liked being accepted. That had been why, when the rest of them had gotten up to sneak off with Lucifer when he had first rebelled, he had followed.

To a last man, his team had Fallen.

There was no I in Team.

Sometimes, Crowley wished there were one.

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**027 Parents. **

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**

Crowley has been a parent before. Several times in fact. He wasn't the angel and, though he'd gotten bored with sex several times over the millennia, he had never bothered too much with celibacy.

When his most recent - and now ex - girlfriend had told him what she had done, he had crushed the phone in his fist until it broke and pieces of it scattered across his kitchen floor. He then destroyed several other things in the apartment, including all of his plants, and went to his room and slept for a week. He'd have probably slept for longer if the angel hadn't turned up to check on him, saw the mess, and panicked.

Later, he told himself that it had been for the best. It hadn't been planned, she wasn't ready, if the angel ever saw the kid, he'd be obligated to report it, and then where would they be?

_But, _a part of himself said. _But, we would have made such good parents._

**&!&!****&!&!&!&!&**_  
_

**028 Children. **

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&  
**

When he was feeling particularly bad, Crowley reflected on a loss he'd suffered a long time ago. If he had known that that was the last time he'd see his son, he would have done something other than yell at the child to go back to bed and go to sleep. It wasn't the first or the last time he'd had a child die on him but, it was the most memorable because out of all of his known children, that son had been the only one he hadn't told he'd loved him right before he died.

He'd loved Egypt back then.

Tempting people was easy, and he'd married into quite the fortune. By the time the plagues rolled around, he'd had a loving wife, a good home, and five healthy if slightly demonic looking children.

He should have taken what he could grab and run with the family when the first plague hit, no matter how uncertain his wife was about a future in another land without their fortune, and no matter how certain his wife had been that these plagues would pass and everything would go back to normal, especially since the family was under his protection.

Azrael, who'd apparently noticed him, had decided to stretch the definition of firstborn back then. The boy hadn't been his firstborn, but he had been hers.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**029 Birth.**

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Crowley, not Aziraphale who had taken pity on a pregnant Eve, had been there for the birth of the first human child. Despite the loss of his sword, Aziraphale was still guarding the Eastern Gate of Eden at that time. He'd seen the look of fear in Eve's eyes as the pain became almost unbearable in those final hours as she went into labor. Neither she nor Adam knew what to do, and based on the agony she was in, all three of them had thought that she would die.

Eventually, after a great deal of screaming on Eve's part, and a great deal of scurrying about on a frantic Adam's part, the first human infant was in the world. It was a small, strange, blood covered thing whose cries hurt the ears of all who heard it.

Adam and Eve didn't initially take to the new creature, and hadn't any idea of what to do with it at first, but fortunately, before it starved to death, Eve figured things out after watching another animal with its young.

Despite the pain she had been in and was still in to a degree Eve lived, and soon there was laughter again a couple days later when Eve tried to lick her young clean before rapidly discovering a different process that was easier on the taste-buds which involved water and leaves.

Sometimes, he thinks that it was entirely fitting that he had been present for the birth of Cain.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**030 Death. **

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**

CROWLEY.

"What? Ssshit. Really?"

YES CROWLEY, THAT LAST ONE WAS THE **BIG ONE**.

"Really?"

YES CROWLEY. YOU ARE NO MORE. YOU HAVE CEASED TO BE. YOU ARE AN EX-DEMON.

"Sssshit. Really?"

NAH, JUST MESSING WITH YOU. YOU WILL BE BACK IN HELL IN 3, 2, 1...NOW.

"Go- Ssssa- _Sssssomeone _dammit. I hate it when he does that. Hi Ralph, yeah, I know, the Angel as usual. A bicycle, a terrier, and a runaway ice-cream truck were all involved this time. I'll tell you about it over drinks while I fill out the infernal paperwork. Where the He- Hea- Manchester did this puce form come from?"

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**031 Sunrise. **

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**

The only time seeing the sunrise was welcome in his life was after a long night of drinking. That had been what he had been doing all last night, and as he walked out of the shop and into the early morning, he was still a little, make that alot, sloshed.

A constable who had been patrolling the neighborhood came upon him as he stumbled towards his Bentley. When he spotted the cop, he quickly sobered up. He, didn't stop stumbling towards the car though, since messing with police officers of any rank - the higher the better - was one of his favorite pastimes.

"Sir, do you have someone that can drive you home?" the constable asked him.

"Why?" he asked, being careful to stand in a position that would have even a perfectly sober human being wobbling slightly.

"Because I can't allow you to drive in your condition." the constable replied.

"What condition is that?" he asked.

"Well, let's see, you smell like a distillery, and you couldn't stand up straight if someone nailed you to a plank and held you upright. Based on those symptoms, what would your diagnosis be?" the constable said sarcastically.

"I don't know, I'm not a doctor. But, my drunk friend who spilled half a bottle of scotch on me and dared me to run around in circles until I was too dizzy to stand might, he's got a bunch of medical books in his colle- in stock." he replied with a wicked grin.

Several minutes later, he drove off into the sunrise after passing a field sobriety test with flying colors, leaving a policeman who dearly wished that he actually could arrest people for being jerks and wasting his time behind him.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**032 Sunset. **

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**

Most people seemed to think that sunset marked the beginning of a demon's workday. that wasn't true though. Most of the sinning went on in a human's life happened during the day while the person was awake. Sure, most of the more blatant sins tended to happen after dark, but the largest number of sins were committed during the afternoon, after lunch, when people got bored, yet still had several hours to go before they could leave work.

Crowley knew this and often exploited it, encouraged it in many small ways, encouraged the lying, the small thefts, encouraged the games in the office, encouraged the skiving off, and a million other things that didn't look like sins but actually were.

For Crowley, sunset was the midpoint of his workday.

When he wasn't skiving off himself that was.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**033 Too Much.**

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**

In the year following the Apocalypse that wasn't, when Aziraphale was selling the books that Adam had left in his restored shop, Aziraphale had decided to decorate the store for Easter in order to attract customers.

After sticking a couple of decals in the window, he declared himself done. Crowley didn't declare Aziraphale done though, and decided to help out while Aziraphale was out.

Aziraphale wasn't amused with Crowley's idea of assistance.

An inane song about an "Easter Bunny" was playing on the sound system that the shop hadn't previously had. Just about every flat surface in the shop which wasn't covered in books was covered in that fake grass which was every parent's bane, the stuff which got everywhere Easter morning, and was still found scattered around the house weeks after. On top of each nest of strangely colored plastic "grass", were several stuffed rabbits surrounding a pile of brightly painted eggs. On the counter next to the register was a flock of stuffed ducks, each of which was flapping about and playing a different song, creating an indecipherable cacophony. As if that wasn't enough, the walls had been repainted in pastel colors with a duck and rabbit motif which was better suited for a nursery.

Aziraphale stood there completely speechless, as his expression darkened with every passing second.

"What, too much?" Crowley asked.

Aziraphale replied by lunging at him with a wordless roar of rage.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**034 Not Enough.**

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**

There were times when he wondered if he had knelt down and begged forgiveness at the beginning, if he had sworn to return to the fold and serve faithfully, he would have been allowed back. Being away from his grace hurt. On Earth, it hurt a little less than it did in Hell where you couldn't see signs of His presence, but it hurt.

It may have transpired that if he'd returned to the fold that he would have just been kicked out again. He was bored easily, and constantly needed things to do to keep himself occupied. That was one of the reasons he liked Earth, there's always something to do there. If he had gone back to Heaven, he would have likely have gotten bored pretty quickly and started some sort of commotion. He'd always been one for causing trouble, not as bad as the Morning Star, but still... That troublemaking tendency had been what had gotten the human race into trouble in the first place.

There was no chance of going back now however. He was gone for good, and there was no forgiveness for him. He'd already committed far too many sins in Hell's name.

While he strongly wished that he could go back, he didn't wish to do so strongly enough that he would walk into certain death to beg to be able to return. That, and he wasn't penitent enough to return if, by some miracle, he managed to actually managed to survive such an insane endeavor.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**035 Sixth Sense.**

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&  
**

She was cheating, and he was in the closet. She was desperately seeking a relationship and coming up empty. They weren't a couple, but could be with a couple of nudges here and there, and the relationship could end in divorce after a couple of years with the right words at the right moment. He was a sociopath, but aside from that, completely normal. She was a kleptomaniac who constantly stole salt shakers for some reason. He wasn't following his diet. He had the clap, and got it from a one-night-stand who knew she had it and was spreading it around. She wasn't as virtuous as she pretended to be, and went to church more for show than anything else. She's been killing small animals around her neighborhood, and was working her way up to humans. He was going to commit suicide when he got home. He was cheating on his taxes. She had Munchhausen by proxy, and it was only a matter of time before her kid died. She was going to be a saint.

He had a sixth sense for these things. It came with the job.

There were times that he wished he could shut it off though.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**036 Smell. **

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**

Crowley didn't like his new body. As well as being the wrong gender while he was in this body, the smell of certain foods that he usually enjoyed nauseated him for some strange reason. The scent that was given off by this morning's breakfast was no exception. He told himself several times that it was only temporary as he pushed his meal away, and ran to the toilet for the third morning in a row.

There had been a bit of a foul up with the paperwork downstairs after his last discorporation, so he had been forced to go the Possession route until it could be straightened out. Knowing how Aziraphale tended to get about that, he always picked someone who wouldn't be missed, someone who was pretty much dead already, and whose soul was already gone when he found them and possessed them. The look on his current body's attacker's face when it got up and started healing itself had been absolutely priceless.

Blessing under his breath, he washed his mouth out and brushed his teeth, biting back the wave of nausea that was caused by his usual toothpaste.

Still in a foul mood, he made his way to the angel's shop.

"I'm sorry dear, but we're...Oh, it's you." The angel said when he walked inside.

"Angel, You would not believe the week I had." Crowley said as he made his way to the back where he knew the angel kept a stash of chocolates which he was really craving for some strange reason.

"I'm sure I would." the angel said looking at him in a disapproving manner as he materialized a bottle of wine to go with the chocolates. "And you shouldn't be drinking in your condition dear."

"In my WHAT?" Crowley said, an instant after a mouthful of some rather good wine went spraying across the room, causing damage to several of the angel's precious books in the process.

"I thought that you'd've noticed by now that the body you're currently inhabiting is pregnant." the angel said as he pulled the wine bottle from Crowley's hands and turned it into something healthy.

"Well, that's easily fixed." Crowley replied as he put down the thing that vaguely looked like a spinach smoothie which the angel had handed to him, and got up to leave.

"Oh no you don't _dear."_ the angel said as he grabbed Crowley's arm in a menacing manner, and forcefully maneuvered him back down into his seat. "And, if you leave that body any time within the next six months, I will smite you myself."

"Sssshit." Crowley hissed.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**037 Sound. **

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**

Crowley sighed as he rolled over. Some sort of noise was keeping him awake, and he didn't know what it was. Whatever it was, it was quiet enough that it wouldn't bother a normal human being. Being a demon however, Crowley had preternatural hearing, even when he was possessing the body of a human. There were times when that wasn't an advantage however, such as now.

Whatever it was he was hearing, it was a bit like a heartbeat, but smaller and quieter, and out of sync with that of the body he was currently inhabiting until he could get his own. He knew that it wasn't a mouse, as no mouse had ever dared approach any of his homes, as they all smelled too much like the snake he was. That, and it sounded like it was in the bed with him.

Oh...

He knew exactly what it was. It was that thrice damned baby that the woman he'd possessed was carrying.

Knowing that there was no chance of getting away from the noise if he didn't want to be smote by an angry angel, he gave up on sleep, got out of bed, made his way to the living-room couch and turned on the t.v..

The things he did to stay on the angel's good side...

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**038 Touch.**

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**

Crowley sighed as he entered the bookshop and found the angel knitting something. Aziraphale was more excited about the baby's existence than he was, though neither of them were going to keep it. It wasn't theirs to keep in the first place, and would be better off with its own kind after it was born. That didn't stop Aziraphale from making little things for it though.

"What are you making this time?" he asked as he filched some of the angel's chocolates since he wasn't allowed any alcohol as he watched the angel work on the latest of what had seemed like a million projects. There was a small basket full of tiny hats and booties and half a sweater sitting on the floor by the angel's side.

"A blanket." Aziraphale replied as he carefully counted the stitches.

"You've already made three of those." Crowley replied.

"This one's made of rabbit hair." Aziraphale replied as he started the next row of the small grayish blanket.

"Seriously?" Crowley asked as he reached over and examined the angel's handiwork. The blanket was very soft to the touch.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**039 Taste.**

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**

The time was so close that he could almost taste it. Soon he would be free of the encumbrance that kept him trapped in this body for the sake of the Arrangement. There had been several times over the last six months and change that he had almost ended it, Aziraphale and the prospect of a permanent death be damned. He hadn't though. He had toughed it out so far, and since he'd come this far, he may as well see it to the finish.

When the time went from so close he could almost taste it to NOW!, he had been in the park feeding the ducks with the angel. He'd been sinking a particularly fat drake when the cramping started. Over the next few hours, the cramping turned to nearly unbearable agony that had to be worse than at least half of the torments of Hell. He didn't know how or even why millions of human women across the globe willingly, and even happily went through this every year.

Having children in this manner was most definitely not to his tastes, and he would never be doing this again. If he were ever forced to possess someone in the future, he would make damn sure that they were male beforehand.

**&!&!&!&!&!&**

**040 Sight.**

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**

It was most likely the body's hormones, but the sight of the baby was a beautiful thing. The child wasn't his though, and he couldn't keep it no matter how tempted he was to do so, a temptation which was undoubtedly also a result of the body's hormones. He had made no preparations for keeping the creature, and demons simply didn't adopt human children. It just wasn't done. Aziraphale, who was also there, couldn't keep it either, since, as an angel, he couldn't favor one human above the rest.

Even though it hurt for some strange reason, leaving it to be raised amongst its own kind was for the best.

The child's mother who had been a drug addict should have been here to see this, but she who was Below probably wouldn't have cared even half as much as he did - which wasn't all that much, really - as the child had been unplanned on her part as well, and most likely would have been aborted if she hadn't died.

It was time for him to leave, to go back down Below, and claim his new body which was finally ready. It was past that, and if he continued to linger, he might give in to the temptation to keep the child. With a sigh, he departed, leaving the empty body behind, and leaving the angel to deal with whatever it took to find the baby a good home. To the doctors, it must have looked like the empty body he had left behind had just died for no apparent reason.

A week later, as he and the angel were eating at the Ritz, finally getting back to something approaching normal, the angel just had to bring up the baby.

"He's in a good home, you know." the angel said as he reached into his pocket for something. "The new parents sent me a picture."

"I don't care." he hissed as he tore the picture that the angel had handed him in two.

The thing was, he did care in some small way. When someone spends six months living in close quarters with someone who wasn't a complete lunatic, someone who wasn't a total jerk and didn't leave messes everywhere or throw wild parties when they weren't wanted, they tended to care at least a tiny bit about how they were doing afterward. He wouldn't let the angel know however. That, and he would never let the angel see the mended photograph which he kept hidden in his sock drawer.


	3. 41 through 60

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**

**041 Shapes.**

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**

**"**It should be fine dear." Aziraphale said as he closed his shop for the day, less than two hours after he'd opened it after closing it for a long lunch which had taken up most of the afternoon. "We'll stick close to Tadfield. Nobody notices anything odd in and around there, even after..."

"It'll be good to stretch my wings again." a mollified Crowley said. "It's been nearly a century since I've been able to do it properly."

As the last of the light faded from the evening sky, a large passenger jet was flying over England on its way to the Continent. The pilot was tired, so it was understandable that his first thought had been that the blurry, and fast approaching shapes were a product of his fatigue.

"Roger?" Captain Tenfor said, turning to his similarly unfortunately named co-pilot. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

By the time Roger turned to reply, the shapes had fully resolved themselves into a flying snake and a pudgy blond guy in tartan who just so happened to be sporting a pair of fluffy white wings for some reason that probably didn't involve his being a "Fairy". As quickly as they appeared, they vanished in an aftward direction, and after several short screams from the passengers who had gotten window seats, and weren't asleep and drooling on said windows, there were simultaneous engine failures on either side of the plane.

There was a miracle that day, and it had been caused by a certain somewhat irked denizen of a certain small English town who had seen the airplane falling from the sky and decided that he didn't want pieces of a 747 scattered across his back yard, rather than by Aziraphale who hadn't had the time to do so, as he was busy elsewhere. As the plane was making an emergency landing at the old military base in Lower Tadfield, in Heaven and Hell, Aziraphale and Crowley were both simultaneously listing "Sucked into jet engine" under "Cause of Discorporation" on their paperwork.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**042 Triangle.**

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**

Crowley loved love triangles. They encouraged Wrath, Pride, Lust, and Envy, and made his job of tempting people into damning themselves alot easier. The Wrath came between the two who vied for the object of their affection, as did Lust and Envy. Pride often was reserved for the one who inspired the conflict, though Pride also came to the one who won when the conflict was eventually resolved in the first sort of love triangle. In the second sort of love triangle, where one person is pursuing a person who is pursuing someone else, Pride wasn't involved as much, but Wrath, Lust, and Envy were still present as the would-be lovers went around and around trying to win the objects of their affection and getting nowhere.

Creating love triangles was fun. All of that conflict was entertaining, and it made his job seem a little less like work at times, and he loved the exasperated look on Aziraphale's face every time the poor angel tried, and failed to sort things out to everyone's satisfaction.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**043 Square.**

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**

Amongst all of Crowley's possessions, there were very few that he kept more than a decade or so, probably because he'd been forced to pack light for a number of millennia. The Bentley was the most recent of these items. One of the oldest items that he'd kept for a long time, which hadn't disintegrated over the millenia since he'd acquired it was a small, humble wooden object that didn't seem the sort of thing that someone who looked and acted like Crowley did would keep.

Actually, it wasn't the sort of thing that any demon would usually keep for that matter.

The item in question was a small, crudely carved wooden square on which a picture of a snake had been deeply etched at one point, but had nearly worn away over the years. It had been given to the demon by the young son of a carpenter who'd been little more than a tot nearly two thousand years before.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**044 Circle.**

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**

Crowley held the small circle of gold up to the light. It was looking a bit too worn, too much like something that would be worn by an elderly man who'd been married for a good long time. He would have to replace it with a new one soon. Until he did though, it would serve its purpose.

Right now, that purpose was to make a ring shaped indentation in his new wallet.

For some reason, he tended to be even more popular with the ladies while he was wearing that little ring. Not that they all actively pursued him mind you, but they did a heck of a lot more looking when he was wearing that little gold band, and amongst those who did give chase, they were willing to do a heck of a lot more with him than when he wasn't wearing the damn thing. He didn't know what it was about humans and forbidden fruit, but ever since Eden, they had been damn eager to pick it.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**045 Moon.**

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**

The man got his binoculars out. Tonight was the night, just as it had been the night every three months for the last fifty years if his father and grandfather were to be believed. Tonight, the ghost Bentley would be passing by his home. Every last one of his relatives had a different story for the origins of the Bentley, and he'd heard all of them as he was growing up.

As the full moon rode high in the sky, its light gleamed off of black and silver metal as the 1926 Bentley silently drifted past his family's home at high speed. Moments after it appeared, it was gone, leaving another three month wait before it would appear again.

Maybe one day, he would have children to share this moment with, children to tell all the stories he'd grown up listening to to. For now though, the ghost Bentley was his alone to watch, and watch he did, like his father and his grandfather before him.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**046 Star.**

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**

He had stared up into the sky every night while it was there. No matter how many times he saw it, he found that he couldn't tear his eyes away from it. He knew what it was of course, and he knew what it meant.

It meant salvation and forgiveness.

It wasn't salvation and forgiveness for one such as him however, and would never be. It was for the humans whom he had tempted into falling oh so long ago, and continued tempting to this day.

It also meant the end of all things.

As he looked up at the sky at night, he found himself wondering how the sign of the Beginning of the End could be so beautiful.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**047 Heart.**

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&  
**

Crowley had a heart.

That was the problem. In a demon, having a heart was a major failing. Having a heart made one more inclined towards mercy. Mercy was a major weakness. If one had mercy, one was inclined to spare people who shouldn't be spared.

It is the ones who shouldn't be spared who turned around and bit one in the arse.

Crowley had been bitten in the arse after an act of mercy a number of times before. Those times should have been wake-up calls since he'd eventually turn up dead if he kept sparing people who would turn around and attack him. But still, he couldn't bring himself to kill his heart.

Besides, unlike all of the other demons, he had someone he could trust at his back.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**048 Diamond.**

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**

He smirked as he gave the tiny diamond on the ring he was reasonably certain would be thrown in his face at the end of the evening one last polish.

Everything was set. There was the romantic dinner of her least favorite foods. Music that she didn't like that the persona he'd constructed for this decade did was already playing on his exceedingly expensive sound system, and a flower she was allergic to was in the centerpiece on the table.

He'd already won her soul for his side (1), and the perfect way out of the "relationship" they were in was a marriage proposal. At the center of this proposal would be the offering of a rather cheap (2) ring with a somewhat paltry, and slightly cloudy diamond. The diamond he was polishing at the moment, as he waited for his "lady love" to arrive.

He was already picturing the look of dismay on her face when she saw how he'd redecorated his flat in "anticipation of their new life together".

Yes, this evening was going to be fun.

For him that is.

(1) Not that it took too much effort mind you. He'd once been forced to chase after one specimen of the "Fairer sex" for more than three decades back during the Fourteenth Century. Compared to that, six months was nothing.

(2) Cheap being a relative term, as the thing had cost more than what millions, possibly even billions, of people made in a year.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**049 Club.**

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**

_Nowadays, _Crowley reflected. _The word "Club" is more suited to these "establishments"._

As he wandered through the night club, his senses were violently assaulted from all sides. The darkness which was shot through with rapidly shifting lights made it hard for his eyes to adjust. The music went straight through his ears, and pounded on his brain. His sense of smell and taste which had been intrinsically linked since the beginning were assaulted by the wide variety of scents that drifted through the air, from various human body odors, to the cheap and watered down drinks that were served at the bar, and just about everything in between, some of which was illegal. His sense of touch...If it wasn't one thing, it was another, from the sticky puddles he didn't even want to think about, to the people brushing past him on their way to the dance floor, to the people brushing up against him and more on the dance floor.

By the time he'd done his work for the evening, and got out of there, he felt as out of sorts as he had that one time Aziraphale had tried to discorporate him by clubbing him over the head with a - you guessed it - club.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**050 Spade.**

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**

Crowley patted the earth smooth with the spade he'd spent several hours using to dig in the hard packed soil of the isolated place he'd found. Normally he wouldn't have bothered with manual labor, but you know when it came to one's duties as a Best Friend (1)...

This wasn't just one of those things you dealt with by snapping your fingers and making it vanish.

However, if he and the friend he'd been helping out ended up sitting next to each-other in a cell with one of them saying "We messed up.", he was pinning everything on Aziraphale.

It had been Aziraphale's fault that that shelf had been unstable after all, and Aziraphale's fault that they'd been out too long to bring that little bastard who'd been hired to burn down the shop back to life.

He was just going to pretend that he hadn't seen the almost diabolical gleam in the angel's eye when they had caught sight of that hapless young man's legs sticking out from under that pile of books. It was rather disturbing when he wasn't the one carrying the bat and singing "Someone's gonna get it!", either literally or metaphorically.

(1) As opposed to one's duties as a Good Friend, which were: Helping your friend move house, bailing your friend out of jail, and sympathizing with your friend when someone has wronged him or her.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**051 Water.**

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&  
**

Crowley would have sighed if the movement required for such a gesture wouldn't have alerted the person he was dealing with of the fact of his continued existence, forcing him to put up with several more minutes of this nonsense. This was unfortunately one of the hazards of the job, and since he was technically on the clock at the moment...

Sometimes, the people you were tempting were tempted to do other things, things that often came as unpleasant and completely unwelcome surprises. Today for instance, he discovered that the passive-aggressive guy he'd been dealing with off and on for the past month had decided to try giving murder a go.

Waking up to discover that your new "buddy" has kidnapped you from your flat and is in the process of staging an "accidental" drowning is something of a jarring experience. At least, it is the first time it happens. The thing is, as well as being creative buggers, humans tended to hit the same idea from several different directions.

This would be the fourth time this century that a human has tried to kill him in a manner involving water, and the fourth time he'd survived since none of them had gotten the bright idea to try the holy kind.

As soon as there was a large enough black mark on the bastard's soul, he would be returning to his "friend's" flat with a cricket bat. There was something to be said about using human methods at times, and clubbing a moron over the head was cathartic.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**052 Fire.**

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**

Crowley didn't find a roaring fire in the fireplace to be romantic. In fact he didn't find any sort of fire big or small to be romantic. For him, since the Fall, fire had been inextricably linked to one place, a place that he did his damnedest to forget about despite the fact of what he was, what his job was, and where the beings he was frequently in contact with were from.

For him, fire didn't equal romance. Fire could quite easily destroy the mood in any "romantic" situation, as it tended to bring more unpleasant things to the forefront. Things such as a lake that was of nothing but.

There was one other being who knew this, and knew that if there was any sort of flame in the area when Crowley was in what would otherwise be a romantic situation, that meant that he was on the clock, and would welcome a distraction, and if there wasn't, that was his cue to get lost.

So far, Aziraphale had respected that unspoken portion of their Arrangement.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**053 Earth.**

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**

Crowley liked the pictures of Earth as it was seen from Space. Outer Space and the rest of the Universe were real, just as Heaven and Hell were real. It was one of those complicated multidimensional things that would leave you rocking in a corner drooling if you tried to wrap your mind around it however.

In the decade after the Apocalypse That Wasn't, he acquired a number of posters to decorate his flat with along that theme, including one of those Magic Eye posters that you had to press your nose against before carefully pulling back while keeping your eyes crossed in order to see it that was a picture of one of the Space Shuttles.

It was actually one of the few design choices for his flat that Aziraphale had approved of. A month after he'd put up the first couple of posters, he found a picture of the Moon Landing tucked in a back corner of the angel's shop, as the angel had apparently been unable to find a place to put it after acquiring it.

After a bit of fussing about with duct tape, Crowley found a home for the iconic image on the ceiling above the couch that he and Aziraphale usually sat on when they hung out in the back of the shop and got drunk.

It stayed there for the next two decades.

**&!&!&!&!&!&**

**054 Air.**

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**

During the late 1960s, Crowley had gotten a body he hadn't particularly cared for after an accidental discorporation that had involved a hippie, a bad trip with a substance that made people see things as they were, and a shovel that he would be willing to swear to this day had been sharpened. The manner in which he had gotten rid of the thing on November 24, 1971 had earned him a commendation, and was still talked about to this day (1).

The reason that Crowley was remembering the discorporation of that particular body right now, and remembering it with a vague sense of guilt at that, was because of the angel. The angel who was rather shaken up over being paraded in front of news cameras after being interviewed by the FBI.

It had been an honest mistake. He had dozens of caches of cash squirreled away in isolated corners of America, and he never really bothered trying to remember which was which. It had only been bad luck that the money he'd given Aziraphale to settle their bill earlier had been from that little D. B. Cooper incident, and even more rotten luck that the person Aziraphale had handed the money to had recognized it after all this time.

(1) Amongst the humans that was, there'd only been a brief bit of laughter from the guys downstairs before the whole thing was forgotten.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**055 Spirit.**

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**

Crowley cringed when he saw the tent. Holding revivals must've been a seasonal hobby in the Southern portion of the United States. Right now however, it felt as if someone Below was deliberately tormenting him (1). On his road trip, he had passed by three "Revivals", not counting the one which he'd inadvertently caused.

It had been more out of a sense of morbid curiosity than Aziraphale's demands that he'd stopped and parked the rental rather than blew past this gathering like he had the other two. Outside of the large tent which could and probably did hold hundreds, there was a group of people attempting to lure potential parishioners inside by asking them if they wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

He didn't want to be filled with the "Holy Spirit". Right now, the only spirit that he wanted any truck with was the sort which came in a bottle. He said as much, earning himself a swat on the arm from the angel.

Fortunately, Crowley wasn't dragged into the tent which may or may not count as a church, depending, as one of the people who had been trying to pack the tent with curious locals and whoever else might drop by had said that "God loves all people, even sinners, as long as they repent." and had been looking at the angel while he said it.

Watching an angel walk away from a non-pagan religious gathering in a huff was still entertaining, no matter how many times it happened in front of him, which was more and more frequently in recent years.

(1) for an accounting of why Crowley would be tortured with a Revival, listen to Ray Stevens' Mississippi Squirrel Revival, and read The Day of the Squirrel by me (Lucillia), and yes, I did just shamelessly plug one of my stories in another one.

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**056 Breakfast.**

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**

Crowley was enjoying one part of his and Aziraphale's road trip across America, which was the second one they had taken that century. That part was the rather tasty omelette he'd gotten at the diner he and Aziraphale had stopped at. That, and all it represented.

Certain foods were, by tradition, served at only one point of the day. The omelette was in many Western nations, especially America, generally reserved for the morning alone. If one wanted an omelette, one would have to generally get up in the morning to obtain said omelette.

Crowley however was eating his omelette at 6:30 in the evening, and any of the diner's patrons could do the same if they so chose.

He wished that he'd been the one who had come up with the concept. By making a food that was traditionally served during the morning hours available at all hours there was no incentive to get up early in order to obtain said food as a sort of reward. With no reward however small it may be tied to early rising, there was even less of a reason to refrain from indulging in Sloth. In its own little way, the omelette that Crowley was eating encouraged Sloth as well as the Gluttony that any tasty food inspired.

As he ate his omelette, he resolved to find and shake the hand of the guy who had come up with the Breakfast for Dinner idea. Before he socked the bastard in the face for having said idea instead of him that was. Humans really were creative little buggers, and it got annoying at times.

Still, the omelette was good.

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**057 Lunch.**

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**

"What's in your wallet?" Crowley said with a snicker as he used a Capital One card to pay for his and Aziraphale's lunch.

"Um, an I.D. card, fifty American dollars, two pounds and fifty-three pence in change, the receipt from that sandwich I bought last week, a small stack of business cards, a picture of the Pulsifer-Device family, and some pocket lint." Aziraphale said as he examined the interior of his wallet.

"I wasn't asking you what you had in your wallet angel." Crowley said with a sigh.

"You weren't?" the angel asked as he put his wallet away.

" 'S from a commercial." Crowley said.

"A commercial?" the angel asked.

" 'S got Vikings in it." Crowley, who had seen about a dozen of the commercials the night before, replied.

"Vikings?" the angel asked dubiously, as if he wasn't certain he should believe his ears.

"You know what, forget it. Forget I said anything." Crowley snapped as the waiter collected the small plastic tray with the check and Crowley's card on it.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**058 Dinner.**

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**

"Here Crowley, dinner." Aziraphale was saying as Crowley entered the shop, intent on spending the rest of his evening getting hammered.

"One, I'm not eating off the floor, and two, I'm not eating **that.**" Crowley said in disgust as he threw his jacket over the counter.

"It's not for you dear." the angel said as he set a bowl of milk down next to the small dish on which a mound of a particularly unappetizing canned meat product had been set.

"But you said..." Crowley started, as a black kitten with yellow eyes ran up to the dish and the bowl that accompanied it and started chowing down. "Oh."

Crowley bent down and started petting the kitten. He liked cats. He didn't exactly know why, he just did. After stroking his namesake's back a couple of times however, instead of trying to see if this one was one of the rare few felines that would tolerate being picked up and carried about by a demon, he got up and slugged the angel.

"What was that for dear?" the shocked angel asked.

"That," he said as he pointed at the offending animal. "Is a female."

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**059 Food.**

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**

Crowley didn't need food to survive. That was true for all angels and demons. Crowley liked food however, and he'd gotten used to eating regularly.

That was why, while out in the middle of the desert, rather than enjoying soaking up the hot sun like most demons of a serpentlike nature would be doing, he was grumbling about the lack of a good meal.

He'd been hanging out here for weeks, and wanted to get back to civilization. However, the old hermit he was supposed to be tempting on Hell's orders refused to give in.

There wasn't much to eat out here, unless one liked insects and small rodents, and possibly other snakes. Crowley didn't. He liked good human food, like the sort that was served at taverns, inns, and the sorts of parties that he had a habit of attending.

Nothing out here resembled good human food of any ethnic variety.

Even though he knew perfectly well that it was psychosomatic, his stomach ached as if he were starving.

Screw this. If the hermit hadn't given in by now, he'd never give in. He was making his way back to civilization.

As Crowley made his way back towards the nearest city, a holy man who had been ready to give up his vows and sell his soul watched him depart in complete bewilderment.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**060 Drink.**

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**

If he'd known what would happen if he brought up the Accidental Smiting incident in order to weasel a favor out of the angel, he would have kept silent for all eternity.

"I don' remember tha'." Aziraphale, who was a bit more sloshed than he was since he was trying to trick the angel into doing something for him, said.

"You were pretty damn smashed at the time. Come to think of it, you were smashed pretty much every other time you discorporated me as well." Crowley said as he took a sip of his drink so the angel wouldn't get suspicious over the fact that he wasn't drinking.

"Really?" the angel asked in drunken surprise.

" 'S funny really. Back in the old days, we'd get drunk and meet up, and now we meet up and get drunk." Crowley said with a laugh.

Something seemed to hit the angel with the force of a ton of bricks, and he abruptly sobered up and started looking at the bottle he held in his neatly manicured hand in horrified fascination as if he'd never seen it before.

Two days later, Crowley found himself standing in front of a small crowd in a meeting room somewhere.

"Hi, I'm Crowley, and the angel dragged me here because he seems to think we're alcoholics for some strange reason."


	4. 61 through 80

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**

**061 Winter.**

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**

The cold bite of that first Winter had come as a shock to Crowley. He'd thought that the rain that had practically chased the humans away from the Garden would have been the worst of it. It had seemed quite the punishment at the time, considering the fact that the Garden had been in a state of perpetual, and very sunny Spring with perhaps a bit of Summer, and a dash of Fall thrown in for variety.

There had been nothing like this in Eden.

The biting cold wind which had come out of nowhere had caught him unawares, and he'd nearly been discorporated after the first hour of it, as the body he'd been given was made for warmth and sunshine, not..._**this.**_

The wind was a harbinger of worse to come. Rather than rain pouring out of the ominous clouds which covered the sky and presaged a storm to come, something white and above all _frozen_ fluttered down from the clouds and slowly started to bury him.

By the time the sun finally came back out three days later, he'd been discorporated and pushed back out of Hell in order in order to test out a new body that had been forged in one of the colder parts of Hell which would hopefully be resistant to the strange change in climate.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**062 Spring.**

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**

Crowley liked the Spring. In the springtime, his work was easier, and generally took up less of his time. That was because, in springtime, there was a general sense of optimism as the world re-awakened, and people's minds naturally turned towards Love, and of course, everything that went with it.

Human Love had always come hand in hand with Lust. After a certain piece of fruit had been eaten, mankind became aware of this fact. It didn't stop them though. Since time out of mind, human couples had run off into Spring mornings, ostensibly going out to pick flowers or something along those lines, while actually doing something else in the bushes that would earn said couple a charge for indecent exposure amongst other things if they were caught.

All Crowley had to do was line them up, and knock one down, and the others took care of the rest while he sat back and watched the fallout.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**063 Summer.**

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**

Crowley dropped the open pack of condoms on the top of the pile of items in his bag, leaving his bag conspicuously unzipped. With that, he had finished packing his bag of completely unnecessary crap for his Summer holiday. It wouldn't be a Summer Holiday without packing the condoms.

When they went for what in recent times had become their annual holiday together, Aziraphale always reserved a room with only one bed, since he didn't need a bed, and almost always spent the entire night sitting up in an armchair reading (1), and Crowley had always had fun with this. The box of condoms at the top of his stylish black bag full of useless crap was the opening salvo in his campaign to scandalize and terrorize the prudish little old lady who inevitably ran whatever little miserable, and out of the way place Aziraphale checked them into that year.

The following shots usually involved making interesting noises behind the closed door of his and Aziraphale's room while doing an activity that didn't usually warrant such noises, turning up at breakfast with what looked like claw and/or bite marks on his person, and answering the door in the nude when the woman dropped by to poke her nose into his and Aziraphale's business.

While the angel was away buying ice-cream or another book, or somesuch, he would often do other things that were borderline unacceptable, but wouldn't actually get him and the angel thrown out. These little things, along with the empty condom box in the trash, were almost always the closing salvos in a week-long campaign.

It wouldn't be a proper Summer holiday if a rather puzzled Aziraphale wasn't asked to never return to whatever small inn or bed and breakfast they had been booked at upon check-out after all.

These days however, he'd had to resort to even more outlansish behavior while the angel was away, since people, even prudish little old ladies, had pretty much stopped even so much as batting an eye when a male couple went on holiday together.

_(1) On one memorable occasion when Crowley had brought a woman back to the room to see how the angel would react, the only indication Aziraphale showed that he was aware of what was going on right in front of him was his catching Crowley's boxers before they hit his book and setting them on the table next to him before_ _turning the page._

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**064 Fall.**

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**

The first sign of Autumn in Creation had ironically come from the Forbidden Tree of Knowledge. Crowley - who was starting to get used to and coming to dislike his new name of Crawly - had been lounging in his new serpentine body in a spot beneath the tree where the sun shone between its branches when a reddish orange leaf broke off from the upper branches far above him, and landed on his head.

It had been the landing of that leaf that had brought him to Eve's attention.

Eve had bent down, lifted the leaf a bit, and laughed at the surprised look that was still on his face. None of the leaves that he'd previously encountered had done that before, so it was a bit of a shock at the time.

A moment later, the still laughing Eve had picked him up, and called him a "silly snake".

It all went downhill from there.

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**065 Passing.**

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**

Crowley met many people in passing that millions of people the world over would give their souls to even catch a glimpse of in real life. Over the thousands upon thousands of years he'd been on Earth, he'd rubbed shoulders with conquerors and kings as well as other men and women who had changed the world in many profound ways, some positive, and some negative.

He'd drank with and tempted artists, and dreamers, and celebrities night after night while running with just about every "In" crowd that one could think to name.

Very few of these people if any have made a lasting mark on him. Whether this is a good or bad thing yet remains to be seen. What one generation views as perfectly acceptable, another views as immoral, and another views as horrifying, and yet another as absolutely unthinkable. Oddly enough, this principle seems to work both ways.

There are times when it was a good thing he'd only met these people in passing too, who knows where the world would be if the demon had managed to make a bigger mark on them than he had.

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**066 Rain.**

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**

Crowley didn't mind the rain too much just so long as it wasn't pouring out. Water was good for plants and all that. When it was pouring however, it brought back some unpleasant flashbacks of the Flood.

He'd been busy watching and laughing at the jackass who had been building the largest boat in the world on dry land when the Flood hit. The rain started pouring down harder than it had ever done before, and he'd raced towards the only bit of solid shelter in the area, the Ark.

Noah's brats had kicked him off before he could make it halfway up the ramp.

He didn't stay off however. He'd noticed all of the animals who were being hauled aboard, and got a brilliant idea as to how he could stow away.

Traveling in the snake enclosure had not been fun. In fact, "Wasn't fun" was something of an understatement. Almost every other snake he'd been boxed in with had agreed with him on that point, and wished that they'd been left off the list, preservation of their species be damned.

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**067 Snow.**

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**

Crowley didn't care too much for snow. Several of his worst discorporations had been due to hypothermia from cold weather, and the snow it brought with it. He could see the appeal it held, when it wasn't coming down from the sky too thickly though. That, and the temptation that was almost inherent in it.

A temptation that Crowley had decided to give into.

In a city, snow tended to turn yellow or brown or gray very quickly. The snow that had been deposited on the roof of the building which housed the angel's book shop by what locals and newscasters were already touting as the Storm of the Century was still white however. Cold, white, fluffy, and it wouldn't take too much effort to heave a shovelful of it down onto the angel the instant he stepped out of his door.

Crowley had been waiting for the angel to leave for his morning walk for two hours already.

As he debated on whether to settle down for the long haul in order to see the look on the angel's face when a couple of shovelfuls of snow were dropped on his head or to get up and go get something warm to drink to ward off the chill that was settling in his bones, he felt someone grab the back of his jacket collar, and before he could turn around, something cold and wet was forced into the collar of his shirt from where it slid down his back.

"I'm sorry dear." the angel who had just dumped a handful of snow down his shirt said. "I heard you tromping about up here, and I just couldn't resist."

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**068 Lightning.**

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**

Crowley had been struck by Lightning a number of times over his existence. It was one of the hazards of the job, as angels tended to have a bad habit of calling it down in order to smite demons. It had also been one of Aziraphale's favorite methods of getting rid of him for a time.

The first time he'd been accidentally electrocuted when he was fiddling with some wiring after he'd woken up to find the Twentieth Century and just about everything that came with it on his doorstep, he recognized the sensation immediately.

It was at that point that he confirmed beyond a doubt the long-standing suspicion he'd held that as well as being exceedingly clever, humans were also completely insane.

Who would willingly bring lightning into their homes in order to do tasks that they had done just fine without it for several millennia?

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**069 Thunder.**

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**

He flinched slightly as he heard the roar of thunder, knowing what usually came next. It didn't come next however, since the thunder was coming out of his expensive, state-of-the-art sound system rather than from outside. He relaxed when he finally processed the fact that the lightning wouldn't be forthcoming. Sighing, he ejected the CD on which the thunder had been recorded and set it aside in his "Either toss or give to the angel for Christmas" pile.

How could modern humans find this relaxing? A storm as severe as the one in the recording would usually send their ancestors scurrying off to huddle in corners, unless they were the few poor sods who couldn't huddle in the corner, or the rare few nuts who were what are called "Adrenaline junkies" nowadays.

It's possible that he didn't get it either because he wasn't human, or because the experience had been ruined for him long before because he'd been struck by lightning one too many times and had an near-instinctive fear of thunder as a result.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**070 Storm.**

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**

It had been in the days long before the Arrangement. A storm had raged about him so fiercely that he'd been afraid that he would discorporate before he found shelter. Just when he was giving up hope of finding someplace dry and reasonably warm in which to spend the night, an opening to a cave in a nearby hill revealed itself to him.

When he entered the cave, it had been to find a rather surprised Aziraphale who had apparently moved in there a while back looking up from the scroll which he had been reading.

"Discorporate me here and now angel, because I am **not** going back out there." he finally said as he leaned towards the fire that was between him in the angel, relieved to be away from the cold and the wet if only for a moment.

The angel very carefully re-furled the scroll he'd been reading and delicately set it aside before briefly casting about for a weapon, and settling on using a log from the fire in order to comply with his request which had been rather stupid now that he thought about it.

"Well, at least I'm not cold." he muttered when he got back to Hell, as he headed to the end of the long line of demons who were waiting for new bodies.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**071 Broken. **

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**

Not everything went back to normal after the Apocalypse that wasn't. Aziraphale's shop may have been unburnt and stocked with books, and his Bentley may be there as good as, well not new, but as good as it had been before it had caught fire on the M-25 which he was seriously regretting designing no matter how funny it had been at the time. His apartment was as pristine as ever.

Not everything in his apartment was back to normal however.

When everything had gotten fixed after Adam had stopped the Apocalypse, one thing had been missed. In the grand scheme of things, considering all of the things that had gone wonky, from Nuclear Power Plants losing their reactors and still putting out energy to Atlantis surfacing, it was small and insignificant. It shouldn't really matter, but it still mattered to him however.

Coming home to find that things weren't as perfect as he had thought them to be when he and the angel had found his Bentley parked outside the angel's unburned shop had disturbed him to no end, as he found himself sitting there staring at the offending item, and wondering what else Adam could have missed, and what the consequences of having missed those things would be.

Thanks to his and Hastur's little trip through it, his ansaphone was broken, and Adam hadn't fixed it like he had done everything else.

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**072 Fixed. **

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**

He'd found the half-starved creature shivering in an alley, and winced at the reaction he anticipated from Aziraphale when he'd picked it up and brought it home with him rather than leaving it to its fate. He hadn't done it out of kindness. At least, he told himself that. The kitten, once it was cleaned up, was a rather snowy shade of white that would go perfectly with his apartment's decor, and keeping animals was currently fashionable.

All in all, he was a reasonably good cat owner. The animal was clean and well fed. Every morning, its food and water appeared, its litter box was cleaned, and its fur vanished from the furniture with a snap of his fingers. As the kitten grew however, it became apparent that there was a task that he didn't quite know how to deal with, or even whether or not he should. When the kitten, who was now pretty much a full-grown cat was six months old, he was still trying to make a decision about whether or not he should.

One day however, he came back to his apartment after a day of tempting to find his cat gone and a note stuck to the fridge with a magnet he would never have owned in a million years.

Aziraphale, Mr. "All life is precious", had taken the decision out of his hands and gotten the cat fixed.

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**073 Light.**

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**

He could try to blame it on the fact that he had slept through the Nineteenth Century, but the fact was that electric lighting hadn't become a common household phenomena until well after the Twentieth Century had started.

The lights in his apartment all worked because he expected them to work. That was how it was with every mechanical thing he owned, from the Bentley, to the fridge which he'd never bothered to plug in.

He'd been surprised when he had been visiting his current "girlfriend's" flat, and the light burned out. He'd been somewhat at a loss when the woman turned to him and asked him to change the bulb. He'd been embarrassed when he'd been forced to call the angel over to deal with the problem. He'd been furious when the woman broke up with him since he couldn't change a stupid light bulb, and decided to attempt to pursue a relationship with the angel, destroying more than a year of work, since every woman who had pursued the angel ended up turning their lives around and finding Mr. Right-For-Them in rather short order.

That was one more lost to the Other Side. All because of a stupid light bulb.

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**074 Dark.**

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**

Hell is dark. Not only in the visual range. That is obvious considering the fact that it is Hell, but still, it is the first thing that impresses itself upon one's mind when one arrives. Crowley does his best to avoid Hell, but there are times when it is inescapable, when he his forced to go Below for business, most often when he has been discorporated.

The part of the darkness that impresses upon him the most isn't that of the pain that is ever pervasive, nor the shadows that surrounded and were barely pushed back by the ruddy light from the Lake of Fire that he'd woken up in after the Fall. It is the one thing that all other demons had gotten so used to ignoring that they had nearly forgotten it had ever existed in the first place...

His Light didn't penetrate the depths of Hell, leaving it in a darkness that was even more profound than that of the deepest moonless night night on Earth where, even when things got to be almost completely hopeless, His Light still shone.

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**075 Shade.**

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**

One of the few things that Crowley remembered about his time in Heaven was that it had been incredibly bright. White had been the predominant color, almost as if the Creator hadn't quite gotten the hang of that whole color thing before he'd created the place. Everything in Heaven from the top of the tallest spire to the mankiest cobblestone that paved a back alley in one of the less fancy districts had been radiant, and lit with the brilliance of His Grace.

Heaven had probably also been the one place in all creation where one was irritably waved away with an impatient comment of "You're standing in my shade." in a manner that would eventually be recognized by beachgoers the world over.

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**076 Who?**

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**

"Who is that angel?" Crowley asked as he entered the shop and found Aziraphale talking to someone who was standing next to the counter in a friendly manner, marking him as someone other than a customer. He didn't get a reply to his question, as the angel and the stranger were too busy talking to notice Crowley's less than dramatic entrance.

"So, will we be seeing you next week?" the man asked.

"Of course dear." the angel replied.

"Will we be seeing you next week as well Mr. Crowley?" the stranger asked.

"Yeah, sure." Crowley automatically replied.

The angel beamed at him from behind the counter as the man departed.

"Who was that angel?" Crowley asked.

The smile rapidly slipped from the angel's face.

"Mr. Dunn agreed to sponsor me." Aziraphale said in a neutral tone as he looked down at the counter where a book had been laid, left by the Mr. Dunn who was sponsoring the angel for something.

"So, are we on for the Ritz?" Crowley asked.

Rather than eagerly accepting his invitation immediately like he usually did, the angel looked strangely hesitant, almost as if Crowley had invited the angel to come along on a trip to tempt people that didn't include any miracles to balance out their evil deeds.

"...Sure." the angel replied after a long minute of silence.

The look on his face wasn't nearly as joyous as it usually was when he was invited to a meal at the Ritz for some reason.

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**077 What?**

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&  
**

"Wha'sss tha angel?" Crowley drunkenly slurred as he watched an equally drunken angel fiddle with some sort of object.

"A month, only a month." the angel said mournfully as he continued to play with the object he was holding.

"Yes, it hass been a month since we las' met." Crowley said, wondering why the angel seemed so sad about it having been a month since they last met, as they'd gone years, decades, even a couple of centuries apart before.

Aziraphale turned and gave him a murderous look before throwing the object he'd been playing with at his head. From the look in the angel's eyes, it was obvious that he wished it were a weapon of some sort rather than a small token.

Crowley briefly studied the small item. It was something that one might pick up at an A.A. meeting if one remained sober for a set period of time.

"You're not still on about tha' angel." Crowley said, remembering how the angel had dragged him to an A.A. meeting the month before, after he'd pointed out that they got drunk just about every time they met, aside from work and the Apocaloops, and the angel had gotten it into his head that the two of them were alcoholics because of this. "Yer an angel, angels don't become alcoholics."

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**078 Where?**

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&  
**

Crowley rolled over and vomited. He didn't know how, since he'd destroyed all extant written copies of it centuries ago, but someone had found and managed to correctly use what had to be the most painful (1) way of summoning a demon. He felt as if he'd been dragged through all nine circles of Hell backwards at the speed of light (2). When he regained his senses, he found himself in a men's room which had only been half-heartedly cleaned for the last several years.

When he looked about for his summoner in order to give him or her a piece of his mind - as that was all he could give them since he was correctly confined in the summoning circle - he found Aziraphale standing next to the door looking far too innocent to be so.

"What the He- Hea- Manchester did you do that for angel? !" Crowley yelled.

"You were late, and I thought you might have forgotten." Aziraphale said in a tone of voice that was as "innocent" as his expression. "You did agree to come after all."

"Where am I?" Crowley asked.

"At our A.A. meeting of course. You missed the last several, and I was afraid that you'd miss this one as well." the angel said in a sweet tone that raised the scales on Crowley's back and gave him a sudden desire to be somewhere else, anywhere else, Hell included.

"It's taking place in a loo?" Crowley said as he struggled to his feet, trying to regain his equilibrium.

"No, the meeting's just down the hall. I didn't think that the other people who are attending would be too happy if I directly summoned you into the room. I know that my sponsor wouldn't, he's the sort who generally frowns on demon summoning." Aziraphale replied as he walked forward, brushed Crowley off, and checked that he was reasonably presentable.

A couple minutes later, Crowley found himself forced (3) to make small talk with people who were serious about quitting drinking while the cup of tea that Aziraphale had shoved into his hand upon arrival in the meeting room went cold.

This was clearly his punishment for getting the angel to fall off the wagon after only a month.

_(1) For the demon rather than the summoner. There were several ways of summoning a demon which were equally painful for the summoner._

_(2) Which was close enough to the truth to be reasonably accurate._

_(3) This wasn't entirely metaphorical, as his full participation in the meeting had been the condition of his release from the summoning circle._

__**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**079 When?**

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&  
**

Crowley groaned as he awoke. He had gone out drinking alone in an act of defiance last night after the meeting that Aziraphale had summoned him to. He had drank far more than usual, far more than he did when trying to get plastered in order to forget something even. And, he'd done it alone.

He'd forgotten to sober himself up last night after he'd finished drinking, and he had a bit of a hangover. The headache and the nausea weren't something he hadn't experienced before, but the low feeling after a night of drinking was something new.

Usually, for him, drinking was either for work or fun. More often than not it had been both. Many of his happiest memories had involved times when he'd had a bottle in his hand and a good companion at his side. Last night most definitely wasn't one of those times.

When had drinking gone from being a fun activity he shared with the angel at times to being this?

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&**

**080 Why?**

**&!&!&!&!&!&!&  
**

As he sat there drinking some horrible tea out of a paper cup, he found himself wondering why he had come. He didn't have temptation in mind as a reason for his presence, even though tempting the people here would be like shooting fish in a barrel, and this place was firmly in the territory of the Other Side. He didn't need to be here either, as only his attendance the week before had been made mandatory by Aziraphale's summoning.

It was like he told the angel before, angels, and demons for that matter didn't become alcoholics.

That then begged the question of why he was here, especially since the angel had been forced to cancel this week due to a work emergency. That, and why he had avoided the clubs he usually frequented for work for most of the week, and hadn't ordered any alcohol with his meals when he'd eaten out.


End file.
